More than two years after witnesses claimed Luke Chrisco emerged from a portable toilet at a yoga festival covered in feces, the alleged Boulder "potty peeper" pleaded guilty today to two counts of burglary and attempted unlawful sexual contact.
In exchange for the plea deal, prosecutors dropped six other burglary charges and a misdemeanor count of criminal invasion. Chrisco is scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 30 for the two burglary charges -- Class 4 felonies -- and the unlawful sexual contact charge -- a misdemeanor.
The burglary charges could carry a prison sentence of 2 to 6 years, but Chrisco's attorney Matt Connell said he hopes Chrisco -- who has remained in custody since his arrest in June 2011 on $250,000 bond -- will get either probation or community corrections.
"We're very hopeful for a community-based sentence," Connell said.
The plea ends what has been a long and winding case that has seen Chrisco go through numerous attorneys, plea changes and mental health evaluations.
Chrisco was arrested in June 2011 a few days after a woman using a portable toilet at a Boulder yoga festival noticed something moving in the tank and then saw a feces-stained man emerge from the toilet and run away.
According to police and court records, Chrisco -- who was arrested by Vail police in an unrelated incident -- told Boulder and University of Colorado police that he hid in crawl spaces and bathrooms around Boulder, including at CU, Naropa University, the Department of Motor Vehicles office and a number of businesses, in order to watch women use the toilet.
Police later found physical modifications in many of the locations that matched Chrisco's descriptions of his hiding places.
Chrisco initially asked to represent himself using a "common law," defense, but his first attorney requested he undergo a mental health evaluation to determine if he was competent to stand trial.
Boulder District Judge Thomas Mulvahill ruled Chrisco competent to stand trial, but Chrisco elected not to represent himself.
After the court appointed Curtis Ramsay as his attorney Chrisco initially pleaded not guilty in 2012. After two more changes in representation, Chrisco changed that plea to not guilty by reason of insanity in May under the advisement of Connell, the fourth attorney to represent Chrisco during his case.
He was scheduled to stand trial in August -- his third scheduled trial date -- and had undergone a mental health evaluation in preparation for the trial. Connell said due to privacy laws, he could not divulge the findings of the evaluation.
Had Chrisco gone to trial and been found not guilty by reason of insanity, he would have undergone treatment at the Mental Health Institute in Pueblo. ___
(c)2013 the Daily Camera (Boulder, Colo.)
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